Society for Latin American Studies

Manuel Gamio and Official Indigenismo in Mexico

Author(s): David A. Brading
Source: Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 7, No. 1 (1988), pp. 75-89
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of Society for Latin American Studies
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0261-3050/88S3.00+ .00
Pressplc
Pergamon
Studies
SocietyforLatinAmerican

Bull.Latin.Am.Res.,Vol.7, No. 1,pp.75-89,1988.

PrintedinGreatBritain.

Manuel

Gamio

and

Official

Indigenismo

in

Mexico
DAVID
Centre of Latin American

A. BRADING
Studies,

University

of Cambridge

I
In the realm of public ideology, the Mexican Revolution
was preceded and
in
an
nationalism.
Intellectuals
as
diverse as Andres
accompanied
by
upsurge
Molina Enriquez
and Jose Vasconcelos
denounced
the sterile aping of
doctrines
which had characterized
the Liberal Reforma of the
European
In
1850s, in favour of measures which were based on colonial precedent.
of Mexican nationality,
fixing upon mestizaje as the historical mainspring
both men echoed
in the
Justo Sierra, high priest of Liberal patriotism
Porfirian era, who had declared that 'the mestizo family ... has constituted
the dynamic
element in our history'.1 That both Social Darwinism
and
Romantic Idealism were invoked to justify these claims demonstrates
how
powerful was the nationalist impulse in Mexico during the first decades of
this century. It fell to Manuel Gamio (1883-1960)
to apply the principles of
Boasian
to
further
the
same
cause, albeit, in this case, by
anthropology
of Indian civilisation
to Mexico's
insisting on the enduring contribution
As the title of his book, Forjando
Patria (1916),
development.
clearly
the Revolution
for its destruction
of obstacles to
attested, Gamio welcomed
the creation of 'the future nationality.
?.. the future Mexican patria'. Although
he did not participate
in the revolutionary
struggle, he praised Pablo
Carranza's lacklustre general, as 'an intuitive national?
Gonzalez, Venustiano
Carranza himself as 'a man of many faults, but
ist', and later characterised
withal a true progressive
and a man of the people', clear evidence that he
favoured the victory of the constitutionalist
coalition over the popular forces
led by Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa.2 In 1935 he asserted that his public
thus avoiding
goal had always been to promote 'a true, integral nationalism',
the contemporary
extremes of fascism and communism.3
To assess the significance of Gamio's contribution
to the Mexican political
and cultural tradition, it should be recalled that although Fray Servando
Teresa de Mier and Carlos Maria de Bustamante,
the chief ideologues
of the
1810 Insurgency, had invoked the grandeur of Anahuac as the chief glory of
their Creole patria and defined the Mexican people as a nation which had
struggled for three centuries to regain its freedom, a thesis enshrined in the
Act of Independence
of 1821, by contrast most early nineteenth-century
Mexican
Liberals dismissed
the Aztecs
as mere barbarians
and viewed
In
Indians as a hindrance to their country's modernisation.4
contemporary
this
could
cite
Alexander
in
von
Humboldt
his
who,
adopting
approach, they
and codices,
the neo-classical
study of Indian monuments
expounded

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doctrine that aesthetic achievement and poUtical freedom invariably co-exist,

a union supremely reaUsed in ancient Greece, but aU too absent among the
Aztecs whom he described as 'a warlike, mountainous
people, strong, but of
an exaggerated ugliness if judged according to the principles of European
to the ceremonies
of a bloody
beauty, degraded by despotism, accustomed
cult, and Uttle disposed to elevate themselves through the cultivation of the
fine arts'.5 In the Ught of these remarks, it comes as no surprise to find Ignacio
Ramirez, Minister of Justice in the first cabinet of Benito Juarez and a great
admirer of Humboldt, condemning
the Aztec realm as an abject despotism,
dominated
and fear, the surviving remnants of its art and
by superstition
Uterature notable only for their barbaric taste. What lessons could be learnt
from texts which admitted that 'the first Mexican emperor ate his wife during
their wedding night and before the sun rose the next day changed her into a
goddess'?6
The Liberals discerned two great obstacles to the emergence of a secular,
democratic
society in Mexico: the wealth and influence of the Catholic
of the Indian peasantry.
Church and the enduring, isolated backwardness
The Reforma thus sought to quit the Church of its property and to deprive the
clergy of aU pubUc authority. So, too, Indian viUages were stripped of their
juridical personaUty and their communal lands distributed on an individual
basis. The result was to leave many communities
virtuaUy defenceless against
the expansion of neighbouring
haciendas. Even where Indians continued in
of land, there occurred a process of concentration
of ownership.
possession
But the radical ideologues who framed these measures were remarkably slow
convinced that
to perceive the consequences
of their policy. Dogmatically
economic progress could only derive from the free play of individual interest
in an unrestricted market, Ignacio Ramirez observed that the Indians were so
in the duU rhythm of rural life that they more resembled
immersed
industrious ants than the free citizens of a liberal repubUc. Indeed, by reason
of their isolation and multiplicity of languages, most Indians could not be
defined as Mexicans, since 'these races stiU conserve their own nationality,
protected by family and language'.7 Only with the pubUcation of Losgrandes
offer a persuasive
nacionales
problemas
(1909) did a Uberal intellectual
defence of the principle of communal ownership of land by Indian villages.
Even so, Andres Molina Enriquez displayed scant interest in native history
and excluded
Indians from the Mexican
nation, which he defined as
mestizo?'
essentiaUy
as the
The achievement
of Manuel Gamio was to reinstate Anahuac
glorious foundation of Mexican history and culture, thus reversing a century
canons of
of Liberal scorn. Equally important, he rejected neo-classical
and demanded
a revaluation
of native art-forms. As
aesthetic judgement
much as Molina Enriquez, he caUed for land distribution on a collective basis
and advocated the revival of village handicraft industry. In the last resort,
however, the official indigenismo promoted by Gamio sought to incorporate
into the national society of modern Mexico. A secular
Indian communities
both the CathoUc Church and the folk Catholic?
liberal, Gamio condemned
ism which governed the minds and Ufe of Mexican Indians, offering by way of
an alternative the diffusion of scientific knowledge and aesthetic achievement.

MANUEL

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INDIGENISMO

77

was thus a means to an end rather than an enduring mission: if

Indigenismo
it sought to destroy rather than
was its aim, then essentially
incorporation
nationalism
communities.
culture
of
native
the
Modernising
fortify
peasant
in past glories
of the brand advocated by Gamio certainly found consolation
but its inner vision was based on the liberal resolve to transform a backward
country into a modern nation able to defend itself from foreign hegemony.
n
The intellectual
of Gamio's public career lay in his professional
foundation
In 1909-1910
he studied at Columbia University
skill as an archaeologist.
with Franz Boas, a vital influence, since not merely had Boas spear-headed
he also played a leading role in
of American
a renovation
anthropology,
ofthe International
School of Archaeology
and Ethnology
the establishment
in Mexico City.9 It was under Boas' direction that in 1912 Gamio conducted
which for the first time
at San Miguel Amantla in Azcapotzalco
excavations
in the American hemisphere
employed the method of stratigraphic analysis,
a method which enabled archaeologists
to trace the sequence
of cultures
In recogni?
and
of
older
levels
shards.
through successively
deeper
deposited
tion of the quality of his research?the
results were made public in the 1913
International
succeeded Boas as Director
Congress of Americanists?Gamio
of the School
of Archaeology
of
and also served in the department
to
become
its
Director
Monuments,
1912-1915,
rising
Archaeological
which coincided with the worst flurries of revolu?
General, an appointment
tionary conflict.10 It was in 1917, largely thanks to the patronage of Pastor
that Gamio was made Director of the
Rouaix, then Minister of Agriculture,
of Anthropology,
a post he occupied
until
newly-established
Department
1924 and during which he undertook
the work for which he is still
remembered.
of the archaeological
Gamio's main achievement
was the reconstruction
site of Teotihuacan.
Already, in the last years of the Porfiriato, Leopoldo
Batres had cleaned the two great pyramids of their centuries-long
cover of
natural vegetation,
a clumsy,
which
robbed
these
job
unprofessional
of their symmetry and left the surrounding site filled with rubble.
monuments
With the assistance
of a team of archaeologists
and some 300 workmen,
Gamio conducted
a thorough survey of the ceremonial centre, uncovered its
main features, and, most important,
cleansed the Ciudadela of vegetation,
it
that
had
formed
a
to Quetzalcoatl,
with the
revealing
temple dedicated
that
from
heads
the
to
cult.
The
the
great serpent
protruded
pyramid attesting
entire site was then carefully restored so as to prevent deterioration.
In
addition to this renovation of ancient monuments,
Gamio undertook several
to determine
the
depth excavations,
employing
analysis
stratigraphic
of
human
settlement
at
Teotihuacan.
Careful
and
sequence
plans
photographs of all work in progress were maintained. Equally important, in 1922
Gamio edited a handsome
two volume survey, undertaken
by his research
It was left to
team, entitled The Population
ofthe Valley of Teotihuacan}2
in
to
set
out
lavish
illustrations, the
Ignacio Marquina
print, accompanied
by
first complete description
ofthe monuments
and overall site of Teotihuacan,
with careful analysis ofthe ceramic sequence and the surviving friezes. Other

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and cultural
of the group provided accounts of the mythology
of Indian civiUsation. As Gamio confessed in his introduction,
developments
was still uncertain and the relation of
the precise dating of the monuments
to Tula, the capital of the Toltec realm, still a matter for
Teotihuacan
speculation. It is significant that Gamio did not essay any rounded synthesis
or description of Indian civiUsation, content to let the archaeological
findings
quality of the
speak for themselves. Despite this omission, the professional
enterprise was abundantly evident and Columbia University awarded Gamio
a doctorate for his work, at that time a rare honour for a Mexican, and clear
proof of his international standing as a scholar.
at once converted
the site into the
of Teotihuacan
The reconstruction
Indian
re-instated
in Mexico and effectively
greatest pubUc monument
civiUsation as the foundation of Mexican history. It was no longer possible for
radicals to dismiss the native past as a story of barbarism, still less for
to rank the Aztecs as superior Iroquois. The sheer
American anthropologists
of
ceremonial
centre in itself evoked comparison with the
scale
the
imposing
on the
pyramids of Egypt and thus restored the old Creole insistence
grandeurs of native empire as the enduring glory of Mexico. It was a thesis
which he published at
Gamio popularised in a tourist guide to Teotihuacan
this time, clearly designed to attract visitors, both Mexican and foreign, to
inspect the results of his project.13 In aU this, Gamio thus inaugurated what
of ancient
was to become a distinctively Mexican industry, the reconstruction
craft industry financed by the Mexican state and justified by
monuments?a
the joint aim of recuperating national glory and attracting mass tourism. In
has always been governed as much by poUtical and
Mexico archaeology
rationale
as
by academic criteria.
practical
Not content merely to study the past, Gamio sought both to analyse and
reform the present. The findings of archaeology were to be paraUeled by the
What linked the two ventures was the
appUed research of anthropology.
first
which
Gamio
thesis,
presented in Forjando Patria, that the bulk of the
Mexican population, if defined in broad cultural terms rather than by strict
Unguistic criteria, were Indians. To demonstrate this thesis, Gamio organised
an ethnographic
running concurrently
survey of the district of Teotihuacan,
at the site, employing an entire team of assistants to
with the excavations
complete the project. The results which were pubUshed in the second volume
of the Valley of Teotihuacan dealt with a multipUcity of themes, ranging from
agriculture, land tenure and diet to reUgious practice, folk-lore and medicine,
with colonial history added to bridge the gap between the native past and the
to his
scene. Once more, Gamio left the actual presentation
contemporary
team, seeking only to summarise their findings so as to afford a basis for his
Governing the entire project was Gamio's convicpoUcy recommendations.
Indians conserved in essential, albeit in eroded, form
tion that contemporary
the culture of their ancestors. Both in its material base and in its inteUectual
native civiUsation exhibited a resiUent, intransigent identity,
presuppositions,
much the same in the twentieth century as it had
its essential configuration
been at the time of the Spanish conquest.13 To demonstrate this proposition,
inhabi?
Gamio first showed that although only 5 per cent of Teotihuacan's
revealed
that some
crude physical measurements
tants spoke nahuatl,
members

MANUEL

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INDIGENISMO

79

were Indians, with the rest mainly mestizo.

60 per cent of the population
a
framed
scheme of cultural characteristics
Moreover,
carefully
equally
demonstrated
the existence of two separate groups, the one broadly native,
the other predominantly
mesrizo-white.14
In his approach
to the native population,
Gamio drew on the work
of Franz Boas who had consistently
value
argued against the explanatory
of the concept
of race, hitherto
in American
dominant
social science,
to Boas there
seeking to replace it by the concept of culture. According
were no inferior or superior races, since all human groups were endowed
with much the same range of talents and qualities. If this was the case, then
there was little point in arranging
races and nations
in any general,
an
much
favoured
in
Social
Darwinist
scheme,
evolutionary
approach
circles where the Teutonic
white nations were generally thought to head
mankind's universal progress. All this was grist to Gamio's ideological
mill,
since it enabled him to escape from the genetic determinism
that then
afflicted social thinking in Mexico. All peoples were equal in the eyes, if not
of God, certainly of the anthropologist.
It was for this reason that he always
referred to Indian or native 'civilisation'
and introduced
his fellow eountrymen to the Boasian
of culture, defining it as 'the natural and
concept
intellectual manifestations'
of any human group. Moreover, if contemporary
Indians appeared sunk in rural idiocy, then their backwardness
should be
attributed to their poor diet, their lack of education, their material poverty,
and their isolation
from the stimulus of national life. There was nothing
since Justo Sierra in a well-known
original in these assertions,
essay had
as the twin determinants
of native
equally fixed upon diet and education
retardation.15
With these principles to hand, Gamio defended the aesthetic achievements
of Indian civilisation,
a frontal assault on the canons of neolaunching
classical taste which had governed academic art in Mexico until the eve of the
Revolution.
Was there not, he queried, an impressive
similarity between
guiding principles of cubism and Aztec art? In any case, the most cursory
demonstrated
that the literature
and art of pre-Columbian
inspection
civilisation was as beautiful and as original as anything produced in Mexico in
centuries. At the same time, he warned against any ill-informed
subsequent
of European
criteria to the appreciation
of Indian artefacts. As
application
yet, the grounds for an aesthetic judgement of such objects did not exist. Most
observers
a
simply singled out as beautiful those images which possessed
fortuitous resemblance
to European form. If the elaborately carved image of
Coatlicue was dismissed as grotesquely
ugly, the warrior's head known as the
Eagle Knight was widely admired. Not content merely to defend the essential
relativity of aesthetic taste, Gamio argued that Mexican artists should seek
inspiration in these native sources, the more especially since in this fashion
they would produce works more accessible and appealing to the contempor?
It was with this didactic view in mind that Gamio
ary native population.
the establishment
of a Department
of Fine Arts, funded by the
proposed
the emergence
of national art in Mexico, asserting that
State, to encourage
such art was 'one of the great bases of nationalism'.16 By way of encourageFrancisco Goytia, a native artist, to paint landscapes,
ment, he commissioned

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in Teotihuacan,
folk-scenes
canvases
done in somewhat
which
were
in
the
impressionistic
style,
reproduced
pubUshed survey.
In accordance with this revaluation of native civiUsation and its art forms,
Gamio also initiated a campaign to revive Mexican artisan industry, singUng
out popular textiles, ceramics, lacquer, metal-work and porcelain. Although
most of these crafts originated in the colonial period, they also, so he argued,
a native tradition and embodied
a harmonious
of
integration
preserved
hispanic and Indian forms and techniques. Unfortunately,
production in all
these Unes had suffered considerably
during the nineteenth century owing
first to foreign imports and then to the estabUshment of modern industry in
Mexico itself. Yet whereas mechanised
factory products could never find a
market abroad, in contrast native crafts met with immediate success, always
in modernising
their
provided
they enjoyed government
encouragement
and in marketing their wares. 'National industry', as Gamio
techniques
a much-needed
rural employment
and in
termed these goods, provided
native
At
the
of
economic
communities.
development
particular promoted
Teotihuacan
Gamio actively encouraged
the revival of artisan crafts and, if
not all survived, the impressive array of stone objects which greet the modern
tourist to that zone offers a tribute to his prescience.17 Once again, Gamio
thus initiated a policy which was to be implemented
by subsequent Mexican
and
which
to
to
characterise
official
this
continues
day
governments
and

indigenismo.
In no sense did Gamio confine himself to the realm of culture, since he
strongly insisted on the necessity of land reform. In a clear echo of Molina
that whereas the colonial Laws of the Indies had
Enriquez he commented
had effectively
land
native
tenure,
by contrast the Reforma
protected
its
land.
of 1857', he
the
of
'The
constitution
Indian
peasantry
stripped
declared, 'is of foreign character in origin, form and basis'. The radicals had
brought in legislation and a form of government that was suitable for a mere
quarter of the population, a system that was exotic and inappropriate for the
native masses. In Forjando Patria he called for measures to reconcile the
Yaquis of Sonora and the Mayas of Quintana Roo, so to incorporate these
that
he admitted
dissident
groups within the nation. More important,
although elements of banditry had entered Zapatismo, there also existed a
'legitimate Zapatismo or Indianism' which simply sought to reverse the laws
of the Reforma, endowing native villages with collectively owned land. Nor
was the movement
confined to Morelos, since Gamio estimated that the
the claims of about a third of the population. In this
Zapatistas represented
sharp attack on the Reforma, Gamio reiterated the dictum, originaUy coined
that laws should be 'derived from the nature and necessities
by Montesquieu,
of the population',
rather than merely apply abstract principles imported
from abroad.18
In the great survey of Teotihuacan,
Gamio commissioned
Lucio Mendieta
Niiiiez
to
of
land
and
the
distribution of
trace
the
tenure
current
history
y
land in the district.19 The pubUshed text made it clear that although Spanish
land-grants began in the sixteenth century and that the Spanish share of
arable land steadily increased as the native population declined, neverthe?
less, most villagers enjoyed some access to common lands until the Reforma

MANUEL

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INDIGENISMO

81

of landless
when the bulk of the population
was reduced to the conditions
The district had not benefited
from Independence
and indeed
labourers.
there were grounds for supposing that its population was not much greater in
1919 than it had been in 1876 or even in 1810. The lack of land, when
combined
with heavy infant mortality, periodic famines, and out-migration,
all served to explain this secular stagnation. As it was, some seven haciendas
owned 9523 hectares or 90 per cent of the available arable land, with the
remainder held by 416 small proprietors. Much ofthe hacienda territory was
devoted to maguey plantations
which produced
pulque for Mexico City.
four
haciendas
had
owned a
and
Only
any irrigation
only one enterprise
tractor. All wheat was cultivated by the large estates, but maize production
was divided in equal amounts between the haciendas
and villagers. Despite
the preponderance
ofthe haciendas, in 1900 they only supported some 371
resident peons, the remainder of the population
living scattered in over 30
small villages and towns, most of which were built in dispersed fashion with
many houses endowed with substantial gardens. Although Mendieta offered
were somewhat larger than his
figures which suggest that village landholdings
estimate of 977 hectares, nevertheless,
there is little reason to dispute his
that most families lacked sufficient land to support themselves,
conclusion
so
that the largest class in the community
were day-labourers,
migrating in
search of seasonal employment
or hiring themselves
to the local estates.
there also existed in each village a family or more of Indians
Nevertheless,
who possessed
land and who acted as the effective leaders of their com?
munities. Despite the bleak picture he drew, Mendieta y Nuiiez cautioned
haste in land redistribution,
since if the Capital
against any indiscriminate
was to be fed the countryside
based on
required efficient small properties
It was thus necessary
both to increase the
irrigation and mechanisation.
endowment
of land available to the villages and to prepare conditions for the
of agriculture.
modernisation
Here were conclusions
that Gamio made his own. At the same time, he
considerable
caution in specifying
the precise mechanism
of
displayed
agrarian reform and indeed chose to defend his recommendations
by an
attack on Bolshevism.
These were the years, it should be remembered,
ofthe
and
of the 'red scare' in the United States. For all that,
Obregon presidency
Gamio's arguments were singularly lacking in dialectical ingenuity. In the first
place, he admitted that in Mexico City 'socialism has made as great and
as in whatever
other country in the world', always
positive
conquests
excepting Russia. In recent years workers had improved their condition by
means of collective action and the organisation
of unions, thus incorporating
into modern civilisation.
themselves
in Teotihuacan
contrast
socialist
By
ideas were unknown and inappropriate.
there were 'pseudoUnfortunately,
Bolshevik
leaders' in the Capital who had proposed
soviets in
implanting
men
who sought to ignore 'the unescapable
laws of evolution', and
Mexico,
on communities
that existed
impose foreign, modern forms of organisation
still at varying degrees of the neolithic, pre-hispanic
or medieval levels of
culture. In any case, he added, Washington
would never accept such a
but would intervene
and thus prejudice
national indepen?
development,
dence. By way of an alternative, Gamio noted that in the pre-hispanic
period

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viUages had been governed by 'a communist organisation of work', which he

described as 'a practical and happy appUcation of the theories of Marx'.
Much the same 'communist system of property' had continued during the
Colony and had only been aboUshed during the Reforma. There were thus
and
for implementing
the 1917 Constitution
ample historical precedents
on
'the
advocated
native
communities
with
so
Gamio
based,
land,
endowing
or
rural
but
not
of
communism,
system
co-operativism
(mutualismo)
Bolshevism'.20 If we recaU that in the same year Molina Enriquez defended
Article 27 of the Constitution
as based historically on the regalian rights of
on the positivist principles of Comte,
the Spanish Crown and philosophicaUy
then the ideological clumsiness of Gamio's vocabulary will become clear.21
ra
To emphasise Gamio's revaluation of pre-Columbian
art; his encouragement
of artisan industry; his insistence on the enduring influence of native civiUsa?
tion; his advocacy of land restitution for Indian viUages; his sharp critique of
his
communism
as alien ideologies;
classical UberaUsm and contemporary
concern with social reaUties as against abstract doctrines and his evident
this is to portray
nation;?aU
aspiration to create a united, strengthened
Manuel Gamio as a typical romantic nationaUst, as a man whose heart and
to the themes and ideals which in the
mind almost instinctively
responded
had
driven
German
patriots to reject the EnUghtenment.
century
eighteenth
of which Franz Boas has been accused,
The very 'historical particularism',
prepared the ground for the rejection of social Darwinism and the imperialist
penetration it served. Certainly, in the opening pages of Forjando Patria, he
of
struck a decidedly romantic note when he appeaded to the 'revolutionaries'
Mexico
to forge a new patria from hispanic iron and native bronze.
Moreover, the starting point of his manifesto was the admission that when
judged by the standards of Japan, Germany and France, Mexico did not
a true nation. As yet, it lacked the four defining features of a
constitute
race and a common
common language, a common character, a homogeneous
rural
of
their
reason
isolation,
many
poverty and
languages,
history. By
constituted a series of separate countries,
illiteracy, the Indian communities
whose inhabitants did not participate in the 'national Ufe'
pequehaspatrias,
or exercise their rights as citizens of the repubUc. The grand aim, so Gamio
defined
declared, must be to create 'a powerful patria and a coherent,
cultural
on
'racial
based
fusion,
linguistic
approximation,
nationality',
unification, and economic equilibrium'.22
No matter how romantic and nationalistic were the impulses that animated
Gamio's pubUc career, in the last resort he was far too deeply influenced by
thrust of these
his liberal, positivist formation to yield to the ideological
of himself as a social scientist who
emotions. From the start, he conceived
expertise in service of the Mexican people
sought to deploy his professional
can be
of this latent positivism
and the Mexican state. The implications
in
after
when
observed
progress'
any
ascending
rejecting
'integral,
clearly
favour of 'periodic, temporary progress' in human culture, he exempted
was
science from this general rule, noting that its universal momentum
this
caste of savants. In 1935, he developed
sustained by an international

MANUEL

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when he wrote: 'In human

into a thorough-going
antithesis
qualification
evolution we observe that scientifically
governed activities have followed an
or
in
'... in activities
...' whereas
curve
their
development
ascending
bereft of the scientific character to which we have
intellectual manifestations
alluded, such as art, religion, ethics and politics, activities which are merely
cannot be
emotive and sentimental,
their irregular evolution
conventional,
which
alteran
curve
but
one
described
only by
graphically
by
ascending
In
all
local
national
concerns
were
and
ascends'.23
descends
effect,
natively
but countervailing
when confronted
eddies, doomed to dissolution,
by the
universal tide of scientific progress.
The degree to which Gamio's
controverted
his romantic
positivism
in Indian
best
demonstrated
failure
to
encounter
value
is
his
impulse
by
any
culture other than its artistic production.
The all-important
fact that contem?
in their daily lives the essential conporary Indians in Mexico preserved
civilisation was not for Gamio a cause for national
figuration of pre-hispanic
exaltation, offering an enduring base on which the nation could be refounded
or constituting
a source of social values hitherto eroded by foreign influence,
but rather embodied
an obstacle
to mestizaje,
and signified
economic
backwardness
and cultural stagnation.
Even in his treatment
of classical
Gamio entertained
traditional
liberal reservations.
Teotihuacan,
True, he
asserted that despite the practice of human sacrifice native religion had
exercised a benign moral influence, always provided 'the evolutionary
stage
then attained' was taken into account.24 Certainly, the density of population
far exceeded
in subsequent
the numbers supported
centuries. In an essay
written for American
he argued that native civilisation
was
consumption,
that is, it grew from progressive,
mental develop?
'spontaneous,
convergent
and biological influence. For this reason their racial
ment, from geographic
characteristics
were normal, their cultural manifestations
logical and their
social structure natural and properly organised'. However, all these observa?
tions were undercut by his description
of the pyramids at Teotihuacan
where
he commented
that the immense masses of earth which sustained the temples
'signified ... the offering of toil, sorrow, blood and tears made by the people
to the gods, subjugated by the theocracies
that exploited their fanaticism!'25
not
Ramirez
could
have
more starkly.
the
matter
put
Ignacio
if the society of Teotihuacan
exhibited evolutionary
Moreover,
promise,
thereafter it was down-hill all the way for the native peoples of Mexico. After
the Spanish Conquest the Indians 'barely preserved their race' and were soon
reduced to 'a mechanical,
dark and painful existence, broken by occasional
and hatred for their oppressors'.
All that Spain
surges of rebellion
to Mexico
after independence
was an enserfed
bequeathed
population
dominated
by a 'hybrid, defective culture'.26 This process of secular decline
was best illustrated by the discovery
that the descendants
of the mestizo
historian of the early seventeenth
Fernando
de
Alva
Ixtlilxochitl,
century,
still lived in Teotihuacan,
a family of petty proprietors,
Indian in
comprising
and culture, who lived in blissful ignorance that they could count
appearance
their ancestors
both Nezahualcoyotl,
the philosopher-king
of
among
Texcoco and Ixtlilxochitl, the only native historian in Mexico to rival the Inca
Garcilaso de la Vega,27 but Gamio did not dwell on the charm and interest of

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that 'there is in Mexico two great social

this story. Instead, he pronounced
groupings Uving side by side in the same territory: the one, numericaUy
and the other,
and efficient civiUsation,
inferior, presents an advanced
It
was a contrast
a
backward
civiUsation'.
the
numericaUy
larger, displays
drawn between the natives and the mestizo -whites, between what in colonial
parlance were caUed Indios and gente de razon?% By then entering its fifth
century of conflict, so Gamio declared, the struggle between the cultures
as ever. The degree to which he denied
remained as strong and oppressive
that native civiUsation possessed any enduring value or offered any lesson to
in the foUowing remarks.29
Mexico was amply demonstrated
contemporary
Ufe exhibits in the great
and intensity that folk-loric
extension
the cultural backdemonstrates
of
the
eloquently
population,
majority
wardness in which that population
vegetates. This archaic life, which
moves from artifice to iUusion and superstition, is curious, attractive and
original. But in aU senses it would be preferable for the population to be
into contemporary
civiUsation of advanced, modern ideas,
incorporated
which, if stripped of fantasy and traditional clothing, would contribute in
a positive manner to the conquest of the material and inteUectual wellbeing to which aU humanity ceaselessly aspires.
The

In short, Gamio probed native culture in the spirit of a pathologist analysing

was thus
the physical decay of the patient. The great survey of Teotihuacan
designed not as a quest for Mexico's native roots and foundation, but rather
Statistics and
of the lower depths of human deprivation.
as an exploration
facts were always forthcoming to support such an approach. Popular diet was
barely sufficient and lacked the tonic quaUties necessary for the display of
more close to
prolonged physical energy, the average calorie consumption
that led to the
a measurement
that of the Egyptians than of the Europeans,
that 'the natives that now inhabit the Valley of Teotihuacan
conclusion
decadent'.30
which is physiologically
a
to
race
belong
Moreover, the grand object here was to remove the obstacles to mestizaje,
that centuries-long
process which would eventuaUy create a homogeneous
Mexican nation. In pursuit of this goal, Gamio was adamant that Indians
to learn Spanish, since otherwise they would remain
should be encouraged
in their own
own
their
within
viUages, dwelUng as foreigners
trapped
of
native
the
use
he
not
did
tongues,
discourage
actively
country'. Although
he clearly hoped that they would slowly wither away, since after commenting
is beneficial to national
on their decUne he observed that 'this decadence...
unification'.31 At the same time, his emphasis on cultural rather than genetic
For
definitions of the native population entailed some curious conclusions.
he declared that men such as Juarez or Altamirano could not be considered
as natives, despite their genetic status, since they had become fuUy incorpo?
rated in modern culture. As late as the 1930s Gamio continued to draw a
distinction between the quarter of the population which enjoyed a modern
scientific culture, predominantly
urban, and the majority which were still
folk-loric ideas and practices. By then he had
dominated by anachronistic,
become enamoured of the soya-bean as the cutting edge of dietary improve?
ment and sought to introduce modern medicine to the rural population.

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Director of the Inter-American

Indigenista Institute in 1938, a
Appointed
post he continued to hold for many years, he still claimed that 'native culture
is the true base of nationality in almost all the countries of America'; insisted
auctothonous
on the 'brilliant future of artisan industry'; characterised
than the foreign
and picturesque'
culture as 'more natural, spontaneous
defined the aim of his Institute as assisting 'the
civilisation of the cities;?yet
necessities
of the groups that vegetate in the lowest stages of evolution'.32
source of
What renders Gamio's case yet more indicative ofthe ideological
in Mexico is that beneath the stern mask of the social
official indigenismo
liberal. Throughout
the
scientist there lurked an unregenerate
anti-clerical
of the three
there was a fierce condemnation
great survey on Teotihuacan
was
centuries of Spanish rule as a period in which the native community
and mindless cruelty. All the
virtually enserfed, the victims of exploitation
and oppression.
However,
emphasis was on the tragedy of their displacement
in his introduction,
Gamio reserved his harshest critique for the role of
Catholicism,
asserting that 'the imposition of this religion was the chief cause
or one of the most important causes ... of the pronounced
and continuing
both in the colonial and contemporary
of the native population
decadence
to depict the first
epochs'.33 Despite the efforts of conservative
propagandists
friars as the protectors
of the Indians, the mendicants
had exploited
the
natives mercilessly, forcing great contingents to labour on the construction
of
the vast churches and convents that soared far above the squalid huts of the
peasantry. Men such as Las Casas and Sahagun were a rarity, not the rule, an
assertion which prompted
Gamio to query: 'Who knows how many bloodfriars
have been hung at the gallows?' If by reason
should
thirsty, exploitative
of their observance
of 'the sombre rules of the misanthrope
of Assisi', the
built less ostentatious
Franciscans
edifices than their Augustinian
counter?
the chronicles
of Motolinia
and Mendieta were essen?
parts, nevertheless,
failed to impart any true knowledge
of
tially misleading. For the mendicants
the Christian gospel to the Mexican Indians, since all that occurred after the
of pagan idols by Catholic images. To this day
conquest was the substitution
the natives practised 'a coarse polytheism...
a strange hybrid of superstition
and idolatrous
of Roman
religious concepts,
very far from the principles
Catholicism'.34
The bitter animus against the Church displayed by Gamio was eminently
characteristic
of the constitutionalist
coalition which defeated the popular
alliance in the Revolution.
Heirs of the Reforma,
the
they condemned
Church as the chief obstacle to their plans to build a modern, secular society
in Mexico.
As the survey of Teotihuacan
the peasantry
were
revealed,
their
on
resources
fiestas
and
on
eminently
exiguous
religious, expending
church adornment.
their devotion left them at the mercy of the
Moreover,
country clergy, who generally displayed little concern for the material wellbeing of their flocks, but rather charged high fees for all their services, lived
with common-law
wives and generally exercised
a retrogressive
influence.
Detailed research on the ethnography
of Teotihuacan
did not always confirm
this harsh verdict. True, the enquiry found that if 4826 persons exhibited
some rudimentary
with the chief tenets of the Christian faith,
acquaintance
another 3419 persons could only be described as pagan Catholics. At the

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same time virtuaUy aU Indians employed folk-medicine

and its practitioners
to cure their ailments and equaUy subscribed to folk-beliefs about the world
and its spirits which had little to do with Church dogmas. Yet the author of
the survey also noted that the influence
of the clergy, great as it was,
depended on individual priests gaining the sympathy of the natives, since at
least one cleric had been virtually expelled by irate parishioners. Moreover,
the survey concluded
that religion was a necessity for the Indians, since it
the
provided
only ray of Ught in the otherwise 'animal life of these men'.35
Such was the force of these findings that Gamio did not recommend
any
frontal assault on the Church. Instead, he merely suggested that the govern?
ment should intervene to lower fees charged for reUgious rites and seek
means to encourage the clergy to marry. So he also urged that the absurdlydressed, often sanguinary images that attracted popular veneration should be
removed or, at the very least, improved, since their crudity corrupted native
that 'other reUgious faiths
sensibiUty. More to the point, he recommended
and other clergy, such as Protestantism
and its pastors, should be implanted
in the region and that regional masonic lodges and other civic associations
should be organised'. In later years, Gamio expressed the hope that the innate
aesthetic qualities of the natives should be encouraged
to the point where
artistic expression
might replace reUgious devotion. As always, he berated
religion as the chief cause of the natives' cultural stagnation and advised the
Government
to promote education
and science to combat its pernicious
influence.36 The indigenismo preached by Gamio thus sought to extirpate the
that had emerged during the colonial period: Leviathan
folk-Catholicism
would brook no rivals in its popular domain.
IV
In a Declaration
of Social, Political and Aesthetic Principles, compiled by
David Alfaro Siqueiros in 1922, a group of leading Mexican painters and
sculptors, including Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco, proclaimed
that 'The noble work of our race, down to its most insignificant spiritual and
is native (and essentiaUy Indian) in origin. With their
physical expressions,
admirable and extraordinary talent to create beauty, pecuUar to themselves,
the art of the Mexican people is the most wholesome
spiritual expression in
the world and this tradition is our greatest treasure'. In this pronouncement
we encounter a messianic euphoria, worthy of the visionary patronage of
in which Mexican artists asserted their vocation to create
Jose Vasconcelos,
forms of universal significance,
albeit of native origin. The tension between
native roots and universal, not to say, futuristic ambition eventually led both
his overly
Siqueiros and Orozco to attack the work of Rivera, condemning
narrow nationaUsm as an unoriginal blend of archaeological
revivalism, folkloric narrative and Gauguinesque
primitivism. By contrast, in his American
exile Siqueiros strove to develop new techniques and employ new materials,
consonant
with the machine age of the twentieth century. Moreover,
he
art
rejected historicist modes as romantic and asserted that revolutionary
had to be classic, public and monumental,
characterised
by an emphasis on
basic, geometric forms, an emphasis already to be found in both the early
David and Cezanne. So, too, Orozco deplored the contemporary
concentra-

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tion on Indian origins, commenting

that much of Mexico's vaunted folk-art
he argued
derived from 'the creoles and mestizos of rural areas'. Moreover,
in aesthetic matters might well benefit folk-art of local and
that nationalism
transient interest, but could only undermine great art which had to follow the
universal standards common to all countries. He added: 'each race will be
able to make and will have to make, its intellectual and emotional contribu?
tion to that universal tradition, but will never be able to impose on it the local
and transitory modalities of the minor arts'.37
In the ideology
much the same
of Manuel
Gamio, we can observe
the
between
the
the
native
roots
insistence
on
of
Mexican people
dichotomy
of the necessity
of modernity.
In art the tension
and the stern affirmation
between these contrasting impulses led to the creation of paintings which at
their best were both national in content and modern in form and technique, a
in part justified by the experience
of the Revolution
combination
and by the
ambition to create modes of expression which were public and
revolutionary
didactic. The images of the past that the great muralists presented
were
derived from the liberal nationalist ideology promoted by the Revolutionary
Government.
So equally in the work of Gamio we encounter
the same
ambition to employ the most advanced techniques
of the social sciences to
elucidate the realities of national history and the contemporary
condition of
the native peoples of Mexico. In the field of archaeology,
modern methods
were similarly applied to uncover the sequence of past cultures and, more
to recuperate
and renovate
the great monuments
of native
important,
them as the tangible, public demonstration
of
civilisation,
incorporating
Mexico's native origin.
In conclusion,
it is surely significant
that the ethnographic
survey of
Teotihuacan
conducted by Gamio was the first systematic enquiry into native
beliefs and religious practices since the 1560s, when Bernardino de Sahagiin
his monumental
There is a haunting identity of
completed
compilation.
of
purpose in the two projects. For the Franciscan justified his accumulation
so much data on pagan religion by comparing his work to the research of a
doctor into disease: he studied paganism so as best to devise the means to
that before the Indians could be incorporated
extirpate it, fully persuaded
into the universal culture of the Catholic church, the very roots of their
and destroyed. So Gamio assembled a team of
religion had to be uncovered
to investigate
assistants
so as to
every aspect of 'Indian civilisation',
encounter the measures which would enable the Mexican state to incorporate the native peoples
into the national community,
which in turn he
implicitly defined as but one variant of the universal culture of Western
liberal capitalism, firmly persuaded that modernity required the destruction
of existing folk-loric beliefs and practices and in particular, demanded
the
of
In
the
influence
of
the
Catholic
Church.
the
item
of
essence,
uprooting
only
in his exploration
value that Gamio encountered
of Indian civilisation was its
aesthetic
source of
artefacts,
objects which could serve as a legitimate
national pride and hence worthy of display in museums erected to celebrate
Mexican cultural achievements.
From the three centuries of Spanish oppresartistic patrimony and folksion, he sought to rescue only its architecture,
crafts. In sum, Gamio dismissed
the long cycle of human civilisation
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Mexico as possessing few, if any, lessons for the present: the past was dead
and, where its influence lingered, ripe for extirpation leaving only its material
admiration.
monuments and artefacts for contemporary
the
the
native
that
affirmation
Gamio's
population
preserved
Despite
culture of Anahuac, his own evidence revealed that it was the colonial period
a living past, a culture which in many important spheres
which constituted
to dominate
the peasantry. The very folk-crafts he sought to
continued
promote derived from that epoch. The forms of communal land-tenure he
little more than a return to colonial practice. More
advocated represented
testified to the
the
vitality of folk-Catholicism
all-pervasive
important,
two
Mexicos. But
were
indeed
There
of
those
centuries.
influence
enduring
the conflict was between a Catholic majority and a liberal minority, between a
populace whose traditions and institutions were rooted in the three centuries
of Spanish dominion and the modernising projects of the revolutionary state.
It is not our purpose to question the wholly admirable concern for the
material well-being of the native population which inspired Gamio's public
derived from his
career. But there is little doubt that his indigenismo
liberalism and was animated by a modernising nationalism, which promoted
into the urban,
and assimilation of the Indian communities
the incorporation
of
official
aim
ultimate
and
The
indige?
paradoxical
hispanic population.
nismo in Mexico was thus to liberate the country from the dead-weight of its
native past, or, to put the case more clearly, finally to destroy the native
culture which had emerged during the colonial period.
NOTES
1. D. A. Brading (1984), Prophecy and Myth in Mexican History, pp. 63-80, Cambridge
Centre of Latin American Studies; Justo Sierra (1948), Obras, Vol. IX, p. 131
(14 Volumes) (Mexico).
2. Manuel Gamio (1960), Forjando Patria, 2nd edition, pp. 169, 181 (Mexico); Jose
Vasconcelos and Manuel Gamio (1926), Aspects of Mexican Civilization, p. 177 (Chicago).
Predictably, Vasconcelos wrote about The Latin American Basis' and Gamio about The
Indian Basis' of Mexican civilisation.
3. Manuel Gamio (1972), Arqueologia e Indigenismo, introduction and selection by Eduardo
Matos Moctezuma, p. 175 (Mexico). Note that this selection reprints parts of Hacia un
Mexico nuevo (Mexico, 1935).
4. D. A. Brading (1985), The Origins of Mexican Nationalism, pp. 48-55, 73-74, 81-92,
Cambridge Centre of Latin American Studies.
5. Alexander von Humboldt (1974), Vistas de las cordilleras y monumentos de los pueblos
indigenas de America, translation and introduction by Jaime Labastida, pp. 87, 95, 236237 (Mexico).
6. Ignacio Ramfrez (1966), Obras, Vol. I, pp. 221-222 (2 Volumes) (Mexico).
7. Ignacio Ramfrez (1966), ibid., Vol. 1,190-191; Vol II, 183-192.
8. D. A. Brading (1984), Prophecy and Myth in Mexican History, pp. 64-71, Cambridge
Centre of Latin American Studies.
9. On Gamio's career see Juan Comas (1956), 'La vida y la obra de Manuel Gamio', in
I. Bernal and E. Davalos Hurtado (eds), Estudios antropologicospublicados en homenaje al
doctor Manuel Gamio (Mexico); also Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran (1971), 'Prologo in Alfonso
Caso', in La comunidad indigena, Sep-Setentas (Mexico).
10. See Ignacio Bernal (1980), A History of Mexican Archaeology, pp. 160-169 (London);
GordonR. Willey and JeremyA. Sabloff (1974), A History of American Archaeology,
pp. 89-91 (San Francisco);see also David Straug,'ManuelGamio, la Escuela Internacional
y el origen de las excavaciones estratigraficasen las Americas', in M. Gamio, Arqueologia y
indigenismo, pp. 207-233.

MANUELGAMIOANDOFnCIALINDIGENISMO

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11. Manuel Gamio (ed.) (1972), La poblacion del Valle de Teotihuacdn (2 Volumes) (Mexico);
facsimile edition, divided into 5 Volumes, introduction by Eduardo Matos Moctezuma
(Mexico, 1979).
12. On tourism see M. Gamio, Teotihuacdn, Vol. I (i), pp. lxxvi-viii.
13. For this thesis see M. Gamio, Forjando Patria, p. 96; Teotihuacdn, Vol. I (i), p. xxix.
14. M. Gamio, Teotihuacdn, Vol. I (i), pp. xxvii-ix; Vol. II (iv), p. 165. Physical measurements
yielded 5657 indigenas, 2137 mestizos and 536 blancos; cultural assessments yielded
5544 persons of'civilizacion indigena' and 2866 of'civilizacion moderna'.
15. M. Gamio, Forjando Patria, pp. 24,95,106; Justo Siera, Obras, Vol. IX, pp. 126-127. For
Boas see George W. Stocking, Jr., Race, Culture and Evolution. Essays in the History of
Anthropology (Chicago, 1968), pp. 161-234; and Marvin Harris (1969), The Rise of
Anthropological Theory, pp. 250-318 (London).
16. M. Gamio, Forjando Patria, pp. 40-47, 55.
17. M. Gamio, Forjando Patria, pp. 140-147; Teotihuacdn, Vol. I (ii), pp. xc-iii.
18. M.Gaimo, Forjando Patria, pp. 30,72,172-181.
19. M. Gamio, Teotihuacdn, Vol. I (ii), pp. 709-774; Vol. II (v), pp. 448-470. Note that
Mendieta y Nunez also provided a general study of the agrarian problem in Mexico and a
review of current legislation, based largely on the works of Wistano Luis Orozco and
Andres Molina Enriquez, in Vol. II (v), pp. 477-572.
20. M. Gamio, Teotihuacdn, Vol. I (i), pp. lxxxi-v; p. xcvii. The pseudo-Bolshevik here was
probably Vicente Lombardo Toledano who had suggested dividing Mexico into a series of
Indian republics: see RamonE. Ruiz, 'The Struggle for a National Culture in Rural
Education', in I. Bernal and E. Davalos Hurtado (eds), Estudios antropologicos, p. 480.
21. D. A. Brading, Prophecy and Myth, pp. 71 -7 2.
22. M. Gamio, Forjando Patria, pp. 6-8,12,183; Aspects of Mexican Civilization, p. 177.
23. M. Gamio, Forjando Patria, p. 106; Arquelogia e Indigenismo, p. 164.
24. M. Gamio, Teotihuacdn, Vol. I (i), p. xliii. He feared that after such a favourable assessment
'se nos tache de indianistas a outrance\
25. M. Gamio, ibid., Vol. I (i), p. lxiv; Aspects of Mexican Civilization, pp. 105-106.
26. M. Gamio, Aspects of Mexican Civilization, pp. 118,169; Teotihuacdn, Vol. I (i), p. xix.
27. M. Gamio, Teotihuacdn, Vol. I (ii), pp. 546-548.
28. M. Gamio, ibid., Vol. I (i), p. xxviii.
29. M. Gamio, ibid., Vol. I (i), p. lii.
30. M. Gamio, ibid., Vol. II (iv), p. 186.
31. See Onesimo Rios Hernandez, 'Gamio y la juventud nativa', in I. Bernal and E. Davalos
Hurtado (eds), Estudios antropologicos, pp. 49-50; M. Gamio, Aspects of Mexican
Civilization, p. 130.
32. Manual Gamio (1948), Consideraciones sobre el problema indigena, pp. 2, 5, 8-9
(Mexico); M. Gamio, Arqueologia e Indigenismo, pp. 125,131-135,158-159,162.
33. M. Gamio, Teotihuacdn, Vol. I (i), p. xliii.
34. M. Gamio, ibid., Vol. I (i), pp. xlvi-ix; M. Gamio, Aspects of Mexican Civilization, pp. 110111.
35. M. Gamio, Teotihuacdn, Vol. I (i), pp. xxxii, xlii-lii; Vol. II (iv), pp. 226-229.
36. M. Gamio, ibid., Vol. I (i), p. xcix; M. Gamio, Arqueologia e Indigenismo, pp. 166-169.
37. DavidAlfaroSiquieros(1975),y4r/fl?^/?evo/w//o?,pp.
21-24,31,62,113-115(London);
Jose Clemente Orozco (1974), The Artist in New York, pp. 89-90 (Austin). See also
Justino Fernandez (1972), Estetica delArte Mexicano, pp. 495-526 (Mexico).